Inspector Lucas Rocco came awake with a start. He was naked and shivering with damp. The sweats always accompanied the dreams, covering him with a slick film as the ghostly images played like a newsreel, shimmering shots of jungle and sunlight and bright, bright flowers. The flowers were always there, too, a mocking backdrop. Behind them lay a hint of something darker, as if whatever kind of God was out there delighted in reminding him of his experiences in Indo-China by playing movie director, alternating colour and shade, life and death. Not that he believed much in God anymore.
Overhead were the skittering sounds of the resident fouines — fruit rats — in the attic. They were clearly in no mood to sleep out the coming winter, no doubt enjoying the heat rising from down here and warming their playground. Rocco mumbled a good morning to them and stretched, swept back the bedcovers and padded over to the window.
The house he was renting stood on the outskirts of the village of Poissons-les-Marais on a patch of ground fronted by metal railings. It was bordered on one side by an orchard, and on the other by a neat cottage belonging to his elderly neighbour, Mme Denis, who insisted on looking after him by leaving gifts of vegetables from her extensive garden, eggs from the chickens roaming free on her land and occasionally stern advice on healthy living. He was also willing to bet she had more than a little interest in helping his love life, although she hadn’t said anything yet beyond the occasional hint about lady admirers. Rocco had avoided the question, happy to leave that issue alone for the time being. He’d been divorced from Emilie for a few years, since when there had been one or two brief attachments, but he wasn’t desperate for anything serious.
It was still dark, but he knew the large, rear garden would look comfortingly unchanged, unaffected by his memories or dreams. A cold dawn would soon be breaking over the apple orchard to his right and filling the garden — as yet untouched by any tentative thoughts Rocco might have harboured at horticulture — with a thin, watery glow. Too late for gardening now, anyway, he told himself. The ground was beginning to harden and nothing was growing. Leave it until spring. And until he bought a spade.
He dropped the curtains back and yawned. It was too late to go back to sleep now. He had to be in Amiens at half eight for the weekly briefing he’d so far managed to avoid more times than not. A phone call yesterday from Commissaire Francois Massin, his immediate superior, had scotched any chance of avoiding another one.
He went through to the kitchen to make coffee. Found he was out of water. He deliberated for a second before taking a large stone jug to the pump outside. If Mme Denis spotted him, she would probably throw a fit. But right now he was beyond caring. Doubtless it would give the crones who formed the rest of her gang something to talk about over the back of the daily bread van. And the village priest, an ascetic sourpuss with no visible love for humanity, would enjoy another reason for scowling at the policeman who never attended a single mass.
He primed the hand pump, his only source of fresh water until the pipes currently being laid in the road outside were connected to the house. It was no doubt a job for Delsaire, the local plumber, if his landlord agreed to the cost. The jug filled, he took a deep breath and pushed his head beneath the last gush of water. It was brutally cold, sending a shower of sparks through his brain and adding to the fingers of cold tingling across his skin. But it woke him completely, dispersing any lingering fragments of sleep. It was also a reminder that October out here, unlike his previous base in Paris, was a whole different game of petanque. No smoke-filled corner cafes to duck into when the weather turned foul, no heated restaurants with a warm welcome and coffee and a tartine beurree to kick-start the day. Even his showers had to be taken in the neighbouring village of Vautry, where the douches publiques offered a welcome session of therapy after a hard day’s work and an ear on the latest gossip through the thin walls.
He drank his coffee while shaving, got dressed in dark slacks, a charcoal shirt, black English brogues and a long coat. He checked his gun. Then he rang Claude Lamotte.
It wasn’t a requirement of being based here in the village to keep the local garde champetre informed of his movements, but it was a courtesy he liked to observe. Claude had been instrumental in helping his acceptance by most of the villagers, as well as a source of information, from how to get a telephone installed quickly to who was sleeping with whom. Rocco was less interested in the latter than the means of communication, but he usually listened out of politeness, anyway.
‘Rather you than me,’ Claude rumbled sleepily, when he told him of his plan for the day. ‘I intend to have a nice quiet one, myself. Bring me back some sweeties, won’t you?’ He dropped the phone with a hollow laugh, cutting the connection.
CHAPTER THREE
The first man tumbled from the Berliet, stiff and uncoordinated after being confined inside for too many hours. He was coughing explosively, dressed in cheap, lightweight clothing which Maurat could see wasn’t near warm enough for this time of year. Poor fool would soon learn. He grabbed the man’s arm and pushed the second flashlight into his hand, then flicked his beam across the verge. He could be point man for the rest. The man nodded dumbly and lurched away, and was quickly followed by another, then another, each breathing in shock at the sudden cold after the undoubtedly foetid atmosphere inside the truck. Maurat counted them as they went, like sheep down a ramp and with as much meaning for him personally. With them came the rank odour of stale sweat and unwashed bodies, of cigarette smoke overlaid with the sharp tang of urine. It reminded him of some truck-stop dormitories he’d used in the past, only worse. Then a softer shape clutching a bundle slid down off the tail, landing with a faint cry of pain. Jesus, he thought, they’ve brought a woman as well?
‘I told you not to smoke,’ he shouted. The words were pointless, lost on them in their haste to be gone, but he felt a vague sense of righteousness in complaining. If it wasn’t for him and the chances he was taking, they’d still be stuck somewhere down the pipeline, facing who knew what kind of fate.
One man stopped and gabbled a question, anxiety laced with fear making him stand too close. His face was gaunt and unshaven in the upward glare of the flashlight, and he wore a greasy jacket and cheap, crumpled trousers and sandals. He spoke rapidly in a language the driver couldn’t understand, but the meaning was clear. Where were they to go? What were they to do next?
‘Over there, the rive nord,’ said Maurat, the beam flicking across the verge to the barrier and picking up a brief reflection from the ribbon of water underneath. ‘Follow the wadi. El-souf, OK?’ He signalled for the man to take the far side of the canal and turn left. ‘Go, damn you, before the police come. Les flics, got it?’
If nothing else the man recognised the word for police. He gave a nod and followed his companions into the night.
The driver waited but nobody else appeared.
‘Hey. Hang about…’ There were supposed to be eight; the man he’d taken over from had definitely said eight. He’d only counted seven. He swore. That was all he needed; some dopey Arab left behind for the security fascists at the assembly plant to trip over. If that happened, his arse would be on fire along with his licence and his truck.
He scrambled into the back, barking his shins on the tailboard, and shone the light around the stacked boxes of car parts. Overlaying the heavy smell of new plastic was the stronger, acidic stench of human bodies and bodily waste. His stomach churned and he wondered how to get rid of the aroma by the time he reached the depot.
A tunnel had been created through the middle of the cargo, and he bent and peered through the gap, probing the darkness with the light beam. At the far end lay a jumble of screw-top bottles and a pile of browned banana skins where his human cargo had kept their hunger at bay during the long journey from the south. It was probably all they’d been given since scrambling off the boat in the Med. He crawled along the narrow opening, scooping up the debris as he went. The bottles were filled with a brownish liquid, and his nose recoiled at the smell of ammonia sloshing about on the floor. Bloody pigs… they were meant to take all their crap with them. God knows what else he’d find Then he saw the sandals.
They were pointing up, scuffed and dirty, clumsy with thick rubber soles, the leather stained. They were at the end of a pair of cheap, green, cotton trousers, grubby and creased with wear.
‘ Yalla!’ he shouted, banging on the floor. ‘Come on, get up!’ He reached out and tugged at one of the feet, flicking the light along the legs for a better view. The words stalled in his throat. He knew instantly by the stillness
